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Twenty-first-century doctoral candidates face a consistently evolving employment landscape. This paper explores how gender and age influence doctoral students' perceptions of employability preparedness provided by their higher education institution for future career pathways. A survey-based study (n = 222) was undertaken at a large regional Australian university to assess what employment pathways graduates intend to pursue, how prepared they feel for these pathways, and what strategies could be utilised to increase the effectiveness of doctoral training with a view to employability. Transition pedagogy is used as a lens to unpack and explore participants' perceptions about systems designed to support success. Key findings include (i) a surplus of candidates seeking academic careers; (ii) candidates reporting doctoral training inadequately prepares them for their preferred career path; and (iii) young males feeling most prepared by their doctoral programme and older females feeling the least prepared. We discuss how preparedness is not experienced equally, and how the conditions of higher education are constructed with assumptions of who a doctoral candidate is, with implications for who is most likely to benefit from it.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	doctoral education, transition pedagogy, doctoral programme, privilege, gender, graduate employability
Research Division:	Education
Research Group:	Education systems
Research Field:	Higher education
Objective Division:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Group:	Expanding knowledge
Objective Field:	Expanding knowledge in education
UTAS Author:	Beasy, K (Dr Kim Beasy)
UTAS Author:	Crawford, J (Dr Joseph Crawford)
UTAS Author:	Young, Sarah (Dr Sarah Young)
UTAS Author:	Kelder, J (Dr Jo-Anne Kelder)
ID Code:	149697
Year Published:	2022
Deposited By:	Office Academic Executive Director
Deposited On:	2022-04-07
Last Modified:	2022-05-06
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